Montreal & Buenos Aires Quebecor World Inc. today announced a further expansion of its Latin American operations as a result of the signing of a ten year (5yr. + 5yr.) printing agreement with Editorial Estrada, a leading Argentinean publisher of school textbooks. The contract is valued at over US$30 million through its term, and services offered by Quebecor World under the terms of the contract will be invoiced in $US. As part of the agreement Quebecor World will acquire the printing assets of Editoria Estrada which will be redeployed to existing book manufacturing facilities in Bogota, Colombia and Buenos Aires, Argentina, thereby reducing overhead costs and improving the economies of scale in the existing plants.
Guy Trahan, President of Quebecor World Latin America stated, "This agreement will permit Editorial Estrada to focus on its core competency, the publication of high quality educational materials. Quebecor World will assume the production of these textbooks in its specialized and highly efficient Latin American book network."
Two press lines are being redistributed to Bogota and one press line to Quebecor World's plant in Argentina. This will improve distribution and further enhance our manufacturing flexability.
Quebecor World Latin America prints more than fifty million books a year in a network of facilities in Sao Paulo, Brazil; Bogota, Colombia; Lima, Peru; Santiago, Chile and Queretaro, Mexico. Across Latin America, the unusually young average age of the population has led to a strong increase in government support for education. This has resulted in a rapid increase in textbook printing. This strong market demand for educational products in Latin America and the specific Estrada contract volumes will make Quebecor World one of the largest producers of textbooks in Latin America.